Amanita
by deathofaraven
Summary: A bit of foolishness, a flight of fancy. Words said without thought hold the most truth to them. And words said without reason are always much closer to lies.


**Disclaimer:** I am not Yana Toboso and so I do not own Kuroshitsuji. More's the pity.

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_Amanita Muscaria  
"Fly Amanita"  
A large, white gilled, white spotted toadstool, typically red in colour; it is noted for its  
hallucinogenic properties. Symptoms of poisoning are unpredictable, usually marked  
by agitation, delirium, confusion, and irritability leading to depression of the central nervous  
system. Nausea, drowsiness, and auditory and visual distortions have also been noted. Symptoms  
usually appear within half to one-and-one half hours after ingestion and can linger for several days._

_Seek immediate medical attention._

* * *

"I think today will be the day that I die."

The words slip out through faintly parted lips as he stares into the murky mahogany depths of his tea cup. He says them without thinking—without malice or cruelty, with neither the intention of shocking anyone nor with the intention of garnering any reaction at all. They are merely a bit of thought passed up from his Shadow, as meaningless as the dithering blue butterflies in the garden outside, and yet he acknowledges, to some degree, that these words hold a sort of quintessential truth to them. And so the words are sour to his contract-scarred tongue and heavy on his pouty lips as each word comes musingly into being and falls weightily upon the morning room's occupants like the first large raindrops of a storm.

_Drip…. Drip…. Drip…._

**_Drop_**_._

Slowly, he raises his head from the fine filigree-and-bone china to stare around the room with wide eyes the same colour as fickle butterfly wings. His head feels strangely light and airy as though some bit of fey trickery has hooked itself into his brain—or perhaps it is closer to the euphoric haze of the fly amanita he once impishly snuck a taste of behind his butler's back—and the generally unnoticed seconds it takes for him to blink vacantly at the rest of the rooms occupants feels like an eternity. The luridly bright apartment sluggishly fades out of focus and into blackness before the process is reversed and the darkness slips into bright. It is as though the world is frozen and they are only occupying a colour plate, and so his mind is whirring impossibly fast to compensate for the lack of sound or movement.

They are all staring at him. Staring with the wide, forceful glare of vengeful corpses as he, overcome with a sudden lethargy, slowly sets down his tea cup, nearly dropping it in the process.

Hannah stands at the other end of the table, utterly frozen as she lifts fragile dishes from the tabletop, and so it is she that he first sees. Her exotically dark skin, usually as soft and creamy looking as milk chocolate, has paled a shade but her eyes have darkened and, like deep pools, they pull him unwillingly in. What he sees terrifies him. She is afraid, truly and maddeningly afraid; he is not sure if it pleases him or infuriates him that Hannah's fear does not appear to stem from fear of his words, but of fear _for_ him. She does not want him to die. She does not want to see him dead. And her fear pulls him deeper into her ancient gaze, finding a warmth and affection he never knew existed within his maid. Within the warmth, a flicker of almost maternal love. And he wonders: is this how a mother looks at you? Is this how it feels to be locked in a mother's loving gaze?

If so, a mother must be a terrifying presence.

And so he listlessly looks away from her, unable to bear such a force, and seeks solace in a distraction to his right. And so his searching eyes fall upon the triplets. For once they are silent, not attempting to engage the house in their ill-mannered Chinese whispers, and they are utterly still. Each of their faces are perfectly blank mirrors of each other; expressionless, vacant, as though they flagrantly and permanently occupy the same delicious fog he is currently drowning pleasantly within—their eyes, such a pretty shade of scarlet that he is tempted to pluck them out and keep them as rubies, speak differently. They do not care for him or his fate, he has been aware of this insignificantly immaterial fact for some time, but they do seem rather concerned—as if their entire existence is situated on the tip of a blade. Canterbury—wait, was that Timber? Was Thompson on one of the ends or was he in the middle? Oh well, he never really remembered who was who, anyway—whoever stood on the left was staring nervously at Hannah as though waiting for something to happen while the triplet on the right was currently watching Claude with the same fretful energy. And, though their internal struggles have the same dull amusement for him as those of a pinned and dying insect, he ignores the middling boy and follows the right-most triplet's gaze in an almost desperate attempt to meet his butler's eyes.

His heart is beating like a war drum with panic-like frenzy and this daze doesn't feel so heady and agreeable anymore. He wants it gone and away so far that he may never feel such affects again, but this stupor has him caught in a tangled web like a wickedly horrid opium dream. He attempts to rebel against his mind's fervent desire to panic, to flee from the room and hide somewhere where he hopes to never be found again, as he reaches out, grabbing onto the crisp lapels of his butler's tail coat and crushing them in his hands as he urgently tugs the demon down to kneel beside him.

Of all the eyes staring at him, he finds Claude's to be the most beautiful and the most terrible. Their lovely amber has deepened to a colour reminiscent of tiger's eye, but there is no emotion in them; his butler plainly sees him, as he sees any other object, but Claude simply looks through him as though his existence is so fleeting and meaningless that the devil cannot even bother to acknowledge it. There is concern in Claude's face, that is clear enough, but he knows it isn't concern for him—after all, if he dies today, with their contract not yet fulfilled, Claude will not get his soul. He longs to reach out, run his fingers through the tousled darkness of his butler's hair and then rake his scalp with his nails to make him bleed. He wants to pull off each of the spider demon's spindly legs and lock him in a little box so they'll be together forever. (_Help me, Claude; help me! I think I'm drowning. __**Why won't you love me?**_) But he also knows he's incapable of doing either. He is, at the moment, alone with only an attempt at holding onto Claude to keep him from falling further and further into torpid delirium.

Was this how a butterfly felt after it had had its fill of ambrosia's sweet nectar? Did it simply dither amongst the blooms because it had nothing to cling to to keep it from falling away—off the edge of the map and into a horrible chasm where the dead glared at you from the dim corners of every room and things that were not there were of far greater importance than those that were. If he could breathe, he would be choking on air.

Claude's lips are moving, but he does not hear a single word. He tries to focus on his butler, strains to ground himself, but his mind is caught on a terrible thought.

"—ighness?"

If he can't breathe now, what if he can't breathe ever again? Has he voiced a self-fulfilling prophecy that will reach fruition in only a few short moments? Will he die here, surrounded by people who do not truly care for him, clutching at the one constant in his life? Will it hurt?

"Your highness?" Claude's voice, grave as sin and as calm as a dead sea, finally breaks through the mental fog.

The fear, the sopor, the airiness…all vanish, siphoned from his body and mind as though carried away from him on little faerie wings. His gaze sharpens behind his fringe of golden blonde hair and his brows narrow defensively. Vexed for reasons he will never understand, Alois blackly snaps, "What is it?"

His butler is quiet a moment and pauses a moment longer to lick his lips before replying, "Are you…quite well, master?"

The boy is too focused on his own insecurities to notice the faint hesitantly lacing Claude's words, and so he says distractedly, "I'm fine. It was just a bit of foolishness."

He pauses; a wisp of thought passes through his mind, pondering if Claude will be the one to kill him. He releases his butler's coat and lets a smile bloom across his lips—small, vindictive, not at all pleasant; the kind of smile aimed at one who you thoroughly intend to destroy—and carefully pushes his devil's glasses further up on the bridge of his nose, where they usually sit. He slowly moves his hand up to rest on the devil's head almost negligently, as though he cannot decide what to do next. And everyone is still. perfectly. quiet. As though they are waiting for a natural disaster to rip the house to shreds. And so Alois's smile vanishes to be replaced with a misanthropic—and borderline nihilistic—scowl as he hops out of his chair and agitatedly stamps away from the room.

"I'm done here."

When midnight comes and goes, he feels mildly victorious and also very annoyed that he is still alive.

As he slumbers that night, he dreams his dead brother crawls out from under his bed to feast on his organs, leaving only his liver behind. If he at all screamed in his sleep, no one woke him.

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**AN:** I know I'm not the first person to do something like this, but this is what happens when I do character studies. Oh well. I still hate writing present tense, though. Even if I'm still ambivalent toward Alois, he's fun to write. I hope you found it enjoyable. Please review with your thoughts. =)


End file.
